


My Meta Archive: The Hobbit

by katajainen



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Also apparently I didn't think to title my posts properly before ch. 7, Analysis, Beowulf parallels in The Hobbit, Book meta with minor mentions of the movies, Dragon Sickness, Dragon-slaying, Dragons, Dwarf-doors, Lake-town, Meta, Mirkwood, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Politics, The Arkenstone - Freeform, The One Ring - Freeform, Virtually unedited, quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-01-10 22:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 11,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: The commentary I wrote for the@silmreadgroup read ofThe Hobbitback in 2016; originally posted on tumblr, collected here for easier reference. (Because while I do have backup copies, this is actually a more searchable format than a bunch of separate googledocs files.)





	1. Ch. 1 & Ch. 2 meta

**Author's Note:**

> Check my [silmread tag](https://katajainen.tumblr.com/tagged/silmread/) for these posts and the ones concerning LOTR. Also assorted fic recs, art, gifs, recipes and suchlike.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1 & 2 lumped together here, since apparently I only got to writing longer posts from Ch. 3 onward.

  **On Chapter 1:**

> Then Mr. Baggins turned the handle and went in. The Took side had won. He suddenly felt he would go without bed and breakfast to be thought fierce. As for  _little fellow bobbing on the mat_ it almost made him really fierce. Many a time afterwards the Baggins part regretted what he did now, and the said to himself: “Bilbo, you were a fool; you walked right in and put wour foot in it.”
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien:  _The Hobbit,_  Chapter 1: An Unexpected Party

This is when Bilbo, for the first time in the story,  purposefully and deliberately steps out of his comfort zone, and why:  _to be thought fierce._

It’s pride that takes him through that door; pride and anger at being mocked for a grocer, at being belittled and made light of. In the end he exceeds both his own expectations and those of others. Even if he chides himself for it, even if he has to go without bed and breakfast. He starts out wishing  _to be thought_  fierce; he ends up  _being_  fierce.

(Just an idle thought or two from my re-reading of  _The Hobbit._ )

 

* * *

  **On Chapter 2:**

> “Thinking it unnecessary to disturb your esteemed repose, we have proceeded in advance to make requisite preparations, and shall await your respected person at the Green Dragon Inn, Bywater, at 11 a.m. sharp. Trusting that you will be  _punctual,_
> 
> “We have the honour to remain
> 
> “Yours deeply
> 
> “Thorin & Co _.”  
>  _
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit,_ Chapter 2: Roast Mutton.

Now then, I  _can’t_  be the only one who reads this as pure unadulterated snark, can I? I mean  _your esteemed repose_? And  _Trusting that you will be punctual_? (Coming from Thorin, especially in the movieverse… honestly.)

But hey, I have now caught up with [@silmread](https://silmread.tumblr.com/)‘s  _The Hobbit_  read-through schedule, yay! (Started a week late, I did.) So beware of random thoughts and quotes on chapter 3 in near future.


	2. Ch. 3 meta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit:_ Chapter 3: A Short Rest – Or: disjointed musings concerning Rivendell, maps and landscape features.

Now, while the book version of Rivendell might perhaps have done better without the over merry tongues of some Elves, I still think the movie version would have been  _vastly_  improved by the removal of the cheap jokes about green food and bathing in the fountains. Alas, it seems impossible to have Tolkien adaptations from Peter Jackson without the obligatory cheap jokes – which is more the pity when we could have had the famous firefly scene instead. (And it could have looked like [@rutobuka2](https://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/)’s pic [here](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/146715034629/i-tried-drawing-that-deleted-scene-with-the)…)  
  
Story-wise, the important bit of this chapter is the info dump. We get the names of the swords and a bit of their history, and more importantly, we get the moon-runes read.  
  
**But** , did you know that Tolkien originally suggested to his publisher that the moon-runes should be printed on the reverse of the map (to be placed in Chapter 3) with the instruction that the reader should hold the page against the light to see them? (Inscription: ‘Thror’s Map. Copied by B. Baggins. For moon-runes, hold up to a light.’) The publisher considered this a waste of effort, since the lazy reader would simply turn the page. Personally, I think it would have made for a lovely map. (From a letter to Allen & Unwin, quoted in the preface of the 70th Anniversary Edition of  _The Hobbit_.)  
  
And I’ll wrap up with a quote, because I will never stop loving Tolkien’s scenery descriptions:

> There seemed to be no trees and no valleys and no hills to break the ground in front of them, only one vast slope going slowly up and up to meet the feet of the nearest mountain, a wide land the colour of heather and crumbling rock, with patches and slashes of grass-green and moss-green showing where water might be.
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 3: A Short Rest.

It’s a single sentence. Please, please do try reading it aloud. Actually, please try reading Tolkien aloud in any case.


	3. Ch. 4 meta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 4: Over Hill And Under Hill.

Name-dropping. Referring to events and places outside the immediate events of the story without over-explaining them, and thus giving the reader an impression of a history leading up to the current situation, of a world stretching far and wide beyond the scene described… that’s called immersion, and that’s one of the things I love in Tolkien’s writing. An example in this chapter: The Battle of Azanulbizar (referred here as the battle of the Mines of Moria).

> Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria.
> 
> [– – –]
> 
> But they [goblins] had a special grudge against Thorin’s people, because of the war which you have heard mentioned, but which does not come into this tale – – –
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 4: Over Hill And Under Hill

No explanation given as to what and where is this place called Moria, a simple statement that the story of that war ‘does not come into this tale’. You’re left with a feeling that you’re only reading a snippet of a larger story that has gone on for some time and will go on after the events described in the book. That the story is set in a world that has a past, present and a future (and that those are real). The complete tale of the war of Dwarves and Orcs is only given in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, and I was very glad to see it included in the film, if only for the sake of backstory.

Another instance of name-dropping is connected to a third set of names for Thorin’s and Gandalf’s swords, and it’s their place of origin: Gondolin.

> They [goblins] knew the sword at once. It had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them in the hills or did battle before their walls. They had called it Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver, but the goblins called it simply Biter.
> 
> [– – –]
> 
> This sword’s name was Glamdring the Foe-hammer, if you remember. The goblins just called it Beater, and hated it worse than Biter if possible.
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 4: Over Hill And Under Hill

Now, the time ‘the fair elves of Gondolin’ hunted and killed goblins (orcs) was in long-lost Beleriand, two Ages past. Which brings us to a very good question: after all those years, how are the goblins immediately able to recognize the swords?

The answer to that might be simpler than one would first think. But first, we need an answer to another question: what is the natural lifespan of Orcs (or here, goblins)? 

If we take as given that Orcs were first created from Elves, twisted and corrupted by the will of Melkor, then it must follow that, like Elves, they do not die of natural causes, i.e. live indefinitely if not slain in battle (for some reason, I do not think Orcs would fade from grief or from weariness of the world). From this, we can deduce that the reason for the goblins’ faultless and instant recognition of the swords is simply that some among them can remember them from back in the day they were first used in Beleriand. And that, if any, is an intriguing thought.

Because if Elves grow wiser as they grow older, what quality does age increase in goblins? Not skill in song-crafting, at any rate.


	4. Ch. 5 meta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 5: Riddles in the Dark.

It is a strange turn of affairs that while this might be my absolute favourite chapter in the book, I find I have not much to say about it (except that Gollum hijacks every scene he’s in, and every scene is improved by it).

One thing though: while this is a pivotal chapter, for me the most important thing is not the most obvious. For me, Bilbo’s stumbling across the Ring comes a second place to him braving and surviving an adventure of his own. Even if we could argue he bests Gollum in the game of riddles essentially by cheating (‘What have I got in my pocket?’ not being a riddle nor originally intended as such), his escape from the goblin tunnels is his own doing, as is his decision not to take advantage of his new-found ring of invisibility by murdering Gollum. In short, Bilbo finds himself in a nasty tight spot, but he also finds his own way out of it, unaided except for his own luck, his own wits and his own courage. And this, I think, sets the tone for many later events, most notably those of Mirkwood.

And another thing: a wee but weighty quote:

> But who knows how Gollum came by that present, ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said. 
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 5: Riddles in the Dark.

This, to paraphrase the author himself, is Sauron the terrible peeping over the edge of the narrative. It’s not much, but enough of a seed to eventually germinate into  _The Lord of the Rings_.


	5. Ch. 6 meta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 6: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire.

Three things: a) Bilbo being a bit of a secretive little shit, b) Dori and the travails of the unofficial porter of the Company’s burglar, and c) the passing of seasons.

First of all: what does Bilbo do when he discovers the rest of the Company has not, as he had feared, been recaptured by the Goblins, but has indeed managed to escape the tunnels? Well, he puts his shiny new magical trinket into use and has a prank at their expense, of course.

> “And here’s the burglar!” said Bilbo stepping down into the middle of them, and slipping off the ring.
> 
> Bless me, how they jumped!
> 
> [– – –]
> 
> Balin [who’d stood look-out] was the most puzzled of all; but everyone said it was a very clever bit of work.
> 
> Indeed Bilbo was so pleased with their praise that he just chuckled inside and said nothing whatever about the ring; and when they asked him how he did it, he said: “Oh, just crept along, you know – very carefully and quietly.”
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 6: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire.

But isn’t it a very relatable thing; to wish to be admired for one’s skills and abilities rather than for lucking to find something that makes the skill unnecessary? I’m not perfect enough to fault Bilbo here.

Second: Dori and adventures in minding the hobbit.

> “Whatever did you want to go and drop him [Bilbo] for, Dori?”
> 
> “You would have dropped him,” said Dori [to Gandalf], “if a goblin had suddenly grabbed your legs from behind in the dark, tripped up your feet, and kicked you in the back!”
> 
> [– – –]
> 
> “You’ve left the burglar behind again!” said Nori to Dori looking down.
> 
> “I can’t be always carrying burglars on my back,” said Dori, “down tunnels and up trees! What do you think I am? A porter?”
> 
> [Dori almost gets caught on the ground when the wolves come, simply for helping Bilbo up the tree.]
> 
> Poor little BIlbo was very nearly left behind again! He just managed to catch hold of Dori’s legs, as Dori was borne off last of all; and up they went together above the tumult and the burning – – –
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 6: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire.

I’m feeling for Dori here. Who volunteered him for carry-the-hobbit duty when he wasn’t looking? (Oh, he does the job, yes he does, but my gods does he grumble, too.)

And third: a note on seasons.

> As they went on Bilbo looked from side to side for something to eat; but the blackberries were still only in flower, and of course there were no nuts, not even hawthorn-berries. [– – –] he ate three wild strawberries that he found on its [stream’s] bank, but it was not much good.
> 
> – J. R. R. Tolkien,  _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 6: Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire.

So. Blackberries in flower still, but strawberries ripe enough to eat; that means early summer. Here is one instance where Tolkien’s off-hand nature commentary is more than just decorative. He doesn’t need to give us a precise date, or mention how many weeks the Company has spent on the road. A mention of berries and flowers does the same, and is also very much in character for Bilbo’s POV.

But that’s it for this week’s @silmread, now onto the next chapter.


	6. Concerning Beorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hobbit, Chapter 7: Queer Lodgings.

Now, I might have fic recs related to this chapter, but since they are, erm… all somewhat not-PG-13, I think that’s going to be another post.

But I have a few things to say about Beorn instead. Like how he’s a barely-disguised Norseman (or Viking, if you will), and closely based on a character in an Icelandic saga.

* * *

 Let’s start with the name. “Beorn” is Old English for “bear”, which is somewhat less than imaginative. It’s worth noting, though, that the equivalents in the Scandinavian languages, “björn” in Swedish and Icelandic and “bjørn” in Norvegian and Danish, are both still used as given names today.

But where does this man called “bear” live? What are the “queer lodgings” mentioned in the chapter title?

Beorn’s hall is described as “a long low wooden house” built around a courtyard “three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings” And once inside, 

> they [Gandalf and Bilbo] found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle. Though it was summer there was a wood-fire burning and the smoke was rising to the blackened rafters in search of the way out through an opening in the roof. They passed through this dim hall, lit only by the fire and the hole above it, – – –

If we add to this Tolkien’s own illustration to the chapter, showing the characteristic layout with a double row of wooden pillars running the lenght of the hall,  the fire pit in the middle and raised benches for sitting, sleeping and the like to both sides, I think we can rather safely conclude that Beorn lives in a longhouse, or, to use the Scandinavian term, a  _langhús_  or  _långhus,_  the likes of which were built all over Scandinavia in the Iron Age. (A quite nice interior pic of a reconstructed longhouse is [here](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A5nghus#/media/File:J%C3%A4rn%C3%A5ldershuset_K%C3%B6runda_2015f.jpg) – sorry, Swedish Wikipedia.) Also, Beorn’s companion animals might be a reference to the way of both people and animals originally lived under the same roof in longhouses.

  


  _Beorn’s Hall_ , illustration by J. R. R. Tolkien.

And finally, once this bear of a man has accepted the wizard and the Company as guests under his roof, what does he offer them for a drink? With all those bees, the answer is obvious: mead. And that, more so than ale, is a Viking draught.

* * *

 Since I’ve now established the Viking-ness of Beorn to my own satisfaction, I’d now like to give a brief consideration to what might have possibly inspired the creation of such character. Let’s have a quote to start with, and this one is not Tolkien. 

> Then Hjorvard and his men see a huge bear going before the King Hrolf’s men, always nearest to where the king was. He kills more men with his paw than any five of the king’s other champions. Blows and missiles glance off him. But he bursts under him both men and horses of King Hjorvard’s army; and everything that comes in his way, he crushes in his teeth, so that panic sweeps King Hjorvard’s army.
> 
> _The Saga of Hrolf Kraki and His Champions_ , translated by Peter Tunstall.

I’m sure anyone familiar with Beorn’s part in the Battle of the Five Armies can see the resemblance. Here, the bear is the doppelgänger, or spirit-form of Bödvar Bjarki (Old Norse: Böðvar Bjarki), the chief among King Hrolf’s twelve champions. Beorn, of course, transforms himself bodily into a bear, but I think the difference is insignificant; an enchantment is an enchantment.

When I did a spot of research on this particular saga, I couldn’t help noticing how often it was tied to Beowulf. Very similar, or even same, characters appear in both stories, and Beowulf himself is quoted as a cognate character to Bödvar Bjarki. A note on the names: “Beowulf” is literally “bee-wolf” which is a kenning, or a riddle, for “bear”. “Bödvar Bjarki” means “warlike little-bear”.

J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of Beowulf. Who took the names for the Dwarves in The Hobbit from Poetic Edda, most notably the section called  _Dvergatal_  (lit. the “Catalogue of Dwarves”). I think I’m quite safe to say the connection here is more than obvious.

A summary: this was the chapter where the Company met a (Viking) warrior who was also a bear, stayed in his longhouse, drank his mead and enjoyed his hospitality. 

* * *

 Rejoice: I have  **not**  added footnotes. I wanted to; it was a fight and a half against myself. But I can give you references here at the end instead:

  * Concerning longhouses and mead, I dipped into my personal library and looked into  _Vikingaliv_  by Dick Harrison and Kristina Svensson, and  _Vikingarna hemma och i härnad_  by Johannes Bröndsted.
  * The translation for  _The Saga of Hrolf Kraki and His Champions_  can be found here. [ETA: **dead link** , sorry!]
  * The parallels between Beowulf and Bödvar Bjarki, are, sad to say, mostly from Wikipedia, but [this UCLA website](http://www.viking.ucla.edu/hrolf/beowulf.html) has a bit to say about it, too.
  * _Dvergatal_  can be found [at the Tolkien Gateway](http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/V%C3%B6lusp%C3%A1).



Phew. That became more long-winded than I thought it would. My thanks to anyone who made it this far. For myself, it was surprisingly fun to write academically-flavoured text after a long, long while.


	7. The long dark of Mirkwood and the courage of hobbits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders.

In this chapter: crossing Mirkwood on limited rations, the courage of a hobbit, and the case of a missing King.

* * *

One of the things that continue to mystify me about the Hobbit movies is how expanding (and fillering) a rather short novel into three full-length feature films manages to give an impression of rushing the events.  _That they are always bloody running, always in a hurry._

In my opinion, it’s the Mirkwood sequence where this phenomenon is especially evident and especially regrettable (I’ll dissect the Laketown issues at their proper time). Because for me personally,  _time_ , or the passing of it, is crucial element of the creepiness of Mirkwood.

Imagine you have a forest to cross, but no clear notion of  _how long_  the crossing will take you. You can only trust what water and food you can carry with you to be safe. It is a limited supply and you cannot be certain whether it will be enough. You ration both food and drink and hope. Imagine when your supplies start to run low, and the forest just seems to go on and on. (Thorin said it: “Is there no end to this accursed forest?”) Imagine your constant hunger after some time (“weeks”, to quote Thorin again) on short rations, and the past few days with barely any. Imagine a parching thirst and hearing the raindrops fall pitter-patter on the leafy canopy above you but leaving you dry. Imagine despair.

It’s a very visceral, a very primal fear; to be lost in the wilderness, dying a slow death of hunger and thirst.

And this is what the movie version glosses over, going for simplistic ‘this is a creepy magical forest’ tricks with soundscape and visuals instead. There’s hardly a sense of time passing. (We don’t even see Bilbo and the dwarves strike camp, do we? Which is a pity, because luminous spider eyes in the dark would have been singularly creepy for real. Such a wasted opportunity.)

But to continue with creepy crawlies: the spiders vs. a little fly with a Sting.

> The spider lay dead beside him, and his sword-blade was stained black. Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath. 
> 
> ”I will give you a name,” he said to it, “and I shall call you  _Sting_.”

Now, remember Gandalf’s words about Bilbo back in chapter 1?

> There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.

To me, this scene, the killing of the first spider and the naming of the sword, is pivotal in proving to  _Bilbo_  that he is capable of much more than he himself thought possible.

And that includes: deliberately taunting a whole colony of giant spiders into following him in order to lure them away from the captured dwarves, freeing the said dwarves and herding them away from the spider’s nest – while doing the bulk of the fighting:

> Things were looking pretty bad again, when suddenly Bilbo reappeared, and charged into the astonished spiders unexpectedly from the side. 
> 
> ”Go on! Go on!” he shouted. “I will do the stinging!”
> 
> And he did. He darted backwards and forwards, slashing at spider-threads, hacking at their legs, and stabbing at their fat bodies if they came too near. The spiders swelled with rage, and spluttered and frothed, and hissed out horrible curses; but they had become mortally afraid of Sting, and dared not come very near, now that it had come back.

This is not the same hobbit that pitched a fit at the mere thought of a threat to life and limb (see chapter 1). This is someone his traveling companions look up to, someone they go to for answers in the absence of the Company’s erstwhile leader.

Because wait a minute. Bilbo tells – at some length – about his ring and how to it came to his possession, and everyone is settling down to rest  _and it’s only at that point someone (Dwalin) notices they’re one dwarf (one Thorin) short_? Wouldn’t you think that the first thing they did after escaping a dangerous situation would be to have a head-count, not to start story-telling? Now, I realize this is probably for narrative convenience, but it still strikes me as awkward.

Of course, the reader is thereafter told that Thorin has fallen prisoner to the elf-king. Which brings to me to another small incongruity that irks me:

> His [the elf-king’s] people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth.

The wood-elves are decent enough to their prisoners: they offer Thorin plenty to eat and drink. However:

> There in the king’s dungeon poor Thorin lay; and after he had got over his thankfulness for  **bread**  and meat and water, he began to wonder what had become of his unfortunate friends. (My emphasis.)

Just. If not from trade or farming, where does the grain for the bread come from? Not from thin air surely? There are other small impracticalities like this elsewhere in Tolkien’s works. Little things that don’t quite add up when you really start thinking.

* * *

So. Thorin is prisoner, the rest of the Company is free, but still without food, drink or a way out of the forest. Now onto the next chapter, and the next opportunity (obligation) for Bilbo to save everyone.


	8. The Remarkable Mr. Invisible Baggins And The Case of Disappearing Dwarves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 9: Barrels Out of Bond.

Or, where the remarkable Mr. Invisible Baggins (of whom Thorin is starting to hold a very high opinion indeed) considers the well-being of others – and is so  _done_  of the ingratitude of some.

> There would be a different expression on the face of the chief guard next day, even though Bilbo, before they went on, stole in and kindheartedly but the keys back on his belt. 
> 
> ”That will save him some of the trouble he is in for,” said Mr. Baggins to himself. “He wasn’t a bad fellow, and quite decent to the prisoners. It will puzzle them all too. They will think we had a very strong magic to pass through all those locked doors and disappear. – – –”

Now, this business with the keys is consideration with a hefty side order of sass. It is Bilbo saying: “We sneaked out, but you have no idea how we did it.” But it is also him undervaluing the means that made the escape possible. “Very strong magic” is, after all, quite an understated way to describe a ring of power.

Of course, when this chapter was originally written, Bilbo’s ring was not yet the One Ring, but rather a generic magical ring of invisibility, a common enough fairytale device. It was only after  _The Hobbit_  was long since published that it became the starting point and centerpiece to  _The Lord of the Rings_ , and definitely identified as Sauron’s ring. But it is tempting to read this line as foreshadowing, even if retrospectively.

Another point underlining Bilbo’s sense of responsibility comes where he’s almost left behind when the barrels are rolled down into the river:

> It looked as if he would certainly lose his friends this time [– – –] and get utterly left behind and have to stay lurking as a permanent burglar in the elf-caves for ever. For even he could have escaped through the upper caves at once, he had precious small chance of ever finding the dwarves again. [– – –] He wondered what on earth would happen to them without him; for he had not had time to tell the dwarves all that he had learned, or what he had meant to do, once they were out of the wood.

Bilbo doesn’t wonder what will become of him without the dwarves (for he has a pretty good idea) but rather  **what will become of the dwarves without him**. And he has thought ahead and planned not only a means of escape, but also a course of action in case the escape succeeds. This is not the same hobbit who merely tagged along at the start of the journey, or even the one who at the beginning of this chapter despaired of being unable to reach the wizard for help. This is someone who, consciously or not, assumes a position of leadership. That, my friends, is what I call character growth.

And Bilbo’s new-fangled authority also shows when he won’t take no for an answer when the dwarves are less than enthusiastic about the barrel scheme:

> ”Come along back to your nice cells, and I will lock you all in again, and you can sit there comfortably and think of a better plan – but I don’t suppose I shall ever get hold of the keys again, even if I feel inclined to try.”

This is a longer way of saying “my way or the highway”, and after all the trouble Bilbo has been through to secure even this tenuous plan I think he’s well justified. What is, after all, the weight of a potentially dangerous escape when measured against an indefinite imprisonment? And spelling out that they are between rock and the hard place works; whoever grumbles afterwards, does so for the sake of form, not for any real reason. (Thorin and Balin, I’m looking at you…)

So,  _Down the swift dark stream you go/Back to lands you once did know!_  Next stop: Laketown.


	9. Lake-town and the chessboard of public opinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 10: A Warm Welcome.

Where the Company’s arrival stirs up great hopes in the hearts of the townsfolk and it’s not immediately clear who’s playing who when it comes to the favour of the public.

**First** , the scene. Let us consider Lake-town; of old the prosperous and significant trade outpost of Dale, now reduced in circumstances and size, but still thriving  _on the trade that came up the great river from the South and was carted past the falls – – –_. In fact, there is even potential for increased profit, for, as Bilbo overhears from the elves working the barrel raft, the roads leading from East to Mirkwood are falling into disuse and disrepair, leading to increase in traffic on the river.

A small sidetrack: the South and East mentioned above. What is downriver from the Long Lake? The River Running (Celduin) meets with Redwater (Carnen) and runs south into the Sea of Rhûn. In Sindarin, the north-west shores of this huge body of water are called – can you guess? – Dorwinion. So the wine that played a crucial role in the last chapter also features (more or less heavily) in the trade sustaining Lake-town.

In any case, even if Lake-town (in the book version) is hardly impoverished, it’s certainly not so well off that it’s populace would not eagerly seize an opportunity for improvement, especially when it comes in the form of names of old and legends become flesh.

**Second** , the players. Let us consider Master of Lake-town vs. Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror, calling himself King under the Mountain.

The current Master of Lake-town is described as a person who did not  _think much of the old songs, giving his mind to trade and tolls, to cargoes and gold, to which habit he owed his position._  But what is that position? A nominal leader of the town, chosen among its merchants. Hardly an elected official, but certainly someone who can’t wilfully ignore the public opinion. And someone, as it will be shown, who actually holds very little power.

Thorin, on the other hand,  _must_  get the townsfolk on his side, or have his quest come to nothing. And his rhetoric, while verging on the pompous, goes down well with this crowd. His two key points: the glorious past and the foretold return of the King. Twice, he names himself, citing his line (the past) and claiming the title of King under the Mountain (who has returned as prophesied), and twice he uses the phrase ‘spoken of old’:

> ”We have no need of weapons, who return at last to our own as spoken of old.”

and

> ”It is true that we were wrongfully waylaid by the Elvenking and imprisoned without cause as we journeyed back to our own land,” answered Thorin [to the Master when the raft-working elves had named the dwarves their king’s escaped prisoners]. “But lock nor bar may hinder the homecoming spoken of old.”

So, those who return as spoken of old require no weapons nor can they be held behind lock and key – sounds like the stuff legends are made of, doesn’t it? It is as if Thorin knows of the nostalgic wishfuls songs of Lake-town and decides to play up to the same sentiment. And he succeeds; it goes down so well that he can use the favour of the townsfolk against the Master to his own advantage, because the last quote above continues:

> “Nor is this town in the Wood-elves’ realm. I speak to the Master of the town of the Men of the Lake, not to the raft-men of the king.”

If, after this, the Master were to dispute Thorin’s claim, he would appear weak, under the sway of the Elvenking rather than knowing his own mind. His hesitation, for fear of angering said king, takes the matter from his hands into the ones of the townsfolk, whom Thorin has already won over.

So the company stays, cheered and feasted and lauded, to enjoy the hospitality of Lake-town.

But when he has the ear of the crowd, Thorin is not the one to let the opportunity escape:

> At the end of a fortnight Thorin began to think of departure. While the enthusiasm still lasted in the town was the time to get help. It would not do to let everything cool down with delay.

At this time the Master of the town has spent two weeks taking Thorin for an impostor and letting the townsfolk believe what they will until the deceit is exposed. So when the dwarf comes up and says it’s time for them to make for the mountain, as if he really is who he claims to be, the Master is left with no leg to stand on. Essentially, by not openly discrediting Thorin’s claim he has inadvertently let it grow all the stronger, and to speak against Thorin now would endanger his own position in the eyes of the public.

I just imagine the Master watching the Company being geared and kitted out on Lake-town’s expense and silently seething and going ‘how the fuck did this happen?’

If this were chess, I would call it a mate.


	10. Dwarf-doors and the opening thereof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 11: On the Doorstep.

> There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of the ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of the Dragon, and they were come at the waning of the year.

This quote has nothing to do with what I’m going to discuss, namely dwarven doors and the opening thereof, but let’s just say it’s here to set the mood. Here are the first signs, albeit secondary, of the dragon, the first indications that the danger is becoming real. (And yes, the quote is also because I love the sound of that last sentence…)

But now on the subject of doors, and of doorsteps. Let’s take a quick recap to the reading of the moon-runes on Thrór’s map back in chapter 3:

> ”Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks,” read Elrond, “and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.”

Here is given both the time and the place; the when and where of the door opening. The grey stone stands on the grassy ledge outside the door, or the door-step, if you will, and it’s a place favoured by great snails, which in turn are the favoured supper of the thrush that breaks the shells by  _knocking_  them against the rock – ‘when the thrush knocks’ is in this case more in the order of ‘where’ than ‘when’.

As of when, ‘Durin’s Day’ is less clearly defined in the book than in the film, and there seems to be more luck involved in being in the right place at the right time. But I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the astronomical precision required to build a door precisely so that the sun hits the keyhole precisely on that single moment of a single day every year. Someone wanted to hide that door, and hide it well.

I’m now taking a small side-track to another set of dwarven-made doors, because Tolkien developed the theme further in  _The Lord of the Rings_. Here’s what Gimli had to say about the subject:

> ‘Dwarf-doors are not made to be seen when shut,’ said Gimli. ‘They are invisible, and their own makers cannot find them or open them, if their secret is forgotten.’
> 
> _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , A Journey in the Dark.

This is basically the raison d’être for Thrór’s map, and my main source of annoyance at the movie version where the stairs to the door are  _just too bloody obvious._  Secret doors should be hard to find, even if you have directions.

Here’s another FOTR quote that purportedly relates to the doors of Moria, but reads more like a reference to the secret door of Erebor:

> ’– – – Some dwarf-gates will open only at special times, or for particular persons; and some have locks and keys that are still needed when all necessary times and words are known.– – –’
> 
> _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , A Journey in the Dark.

But let us consider a moment. In the absence of modern voice-recognition tech or other knick-knacks, what would we call the skill of making doors that open at a specific word, or at the specific day of the year (if one has the key) – or the skill of drawing moon-runes (on a map) that reveal themselves only at the precise phase of the moon? I would call it magic. A very dwarven flavour of magic at that, since it reveals itself in the work of hands and tools.

A work of hands that will last usable for years and decades; a door that will turn smooth and silent on its hinges after more than a century of since it was last used (let us not forget that the secret door was the way Thrór and Thráin escaped the Mountain at Smaug’s coming.)

> A door five feet high and three broad was outlined, and slowly without a sound swung inwards. It seemed as if darkness flowed out like a vapour from the hole in the mountain-side, and deep darkness in which nothing could be seen lay before their eyes, a yawning mouth leading in and down.

Next up, another of my favourite chapters (because everything is better with some Smaug in).


	11. The Changing Portrayal of Dwarves + The Fine Art of Conversing with Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 12: Inside Information.

Lookie, it is the last week’s [@silmread](https://tmblr.co/mMlnhzT7rqN3_ByAwHzKaUA) post! Basically it’s two quotes that stuck with me, discussed in the wider context of Tolkien’s works. Here we go:

> There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.

And this is where people like me, whose introduction to Tolkien was  _The Lord of the Rings_  (and who have a lifetime membership to the Gimli Appreciation Society) go WHAT??!! Because that description is so patently  _wrong_.

But the thing is, at the time of its writing, it wasn’t. In Tolkien’s early writings, dwarves were portrayed as quite the greedy, grasping lot (for instance the early versions of the Nauglamír’s story in  _The Book of Lost Tales_ ). Clearly, something changed between the writing of  _The Hobbit_  and the writing of LOTR. Here I’d like to quote an excellent fanwork that discusses this very issue:  _No other race in Middle Earth goes through quite as dramatic a  
transformation as the dwarves do – – –_

You can find the post by [@askmiddlearth](https://tmblr.co/mWBcqBBRfLZsTjUpcSqRQVQ) with a link to the complete  _Racism and Middle Earth_  article [here](http://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/100504849120/now-presenting-in-its-full-complete-and). Please consider reading the full text, even if the pdf if quite hefty (because of all the spiffy maps). Among other things, the article discusses in depth the great shift that happens in Tolkien’s portrayal of the dwarves, starting with the first draft of  _The Silmarillion_  and continuing all the way to  _The Lord of the Rings_  and the possible reasons and implications of such a change (antisemitism among them).

On to quote number two from this week’s chapter:

> This of course is the way to talk to dragons, if you don’t want to reveal your proper name (which is wise), and don’t want to infuriate them by a flat refusal (which is also very wise). No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.

The first interesting thing: I think Bilbo’s conversation with Smaug mirrors his conversation with Gollum in chapter 5 in that in both situations he’s trying to talk his way out of getting killed (and subsequently eaten). And both conversations revolve around riddles. But there’s one important difference: with Gollum, Bilbo is saved by something he accidentally blurted out (“What have I got in my pocket?”), but with Smaug, a slip of tongue ends up revealing more than he wanted (calling himself “barrel-rider” so close to Lake-town was not his proudest moment).

But in one sense, Bilbo’s riddling does its job: it keeps Smaug from learning his name. And that might have saved him from a worse fate.

I want to take an example of a similar conversation in another Tolkien’s work. In  _The Children of Húrin_ , the dragon Glaurung asks Nienor who she is to seek after Túrin. Unfortunately for her, Nienor has not Bilbo’s knowledge of dragon-lore (or his luck), because she proudly declares herself as a child of Húrin. I quote:  _Then Glaurung laughed, for so was Hurin’s daughter revealed to his malice._  It seems that knowing Nienor’s identity was important to the dragon’s ability to bespell her (when he previously bent Túrin to his will, the son of Húrin was already known to him).

So, in the greater context of conversing with dragons, we can say Bilbo got off lightly, since he was still mostly the master of his own mind (even if Smaug’s words about the dwarves had him doubting his companions).

To finish, I’d like to draw attention to the reappearance of our winged friend from chapter 11.

> All the while they talked the thrush listened, till at last when the stars began to peep forth, it silently spread its wings and flew away.

I’m a great fan of this thrush, and the ravens, and still angry over the way the movies did away with the talking birdies.


	12. An Earlier Journey in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 13: Not at Home.

To start with: I’m going to say very little about the Arkenstone, and not a word about the mithril shirt, because I feel I have nothing essentially new to say about such oft-discussed topics. They’re important, yes, but surely there’s more to this chapter. It can’t be 11 pages about a single jewel and one shirt of mail. Right?

Well, it almost is. But after a few rereads I hit upon a bit of imagery that stuck. Light and air, or lack thereof. In essence, this chapter can be read as a journey from the bowels of the mountain (quite literally) up and out into the sunlight. I’m going to go heavy on the quotes, so brace yourselves.

To begin with, there is darkness and quiet. The dwarves and our esteemed hobbit dare not risk a sound, let alone light. So they sit and wait. After two days and nights, it is too much to bear:

> Thorin spoke: “Let us try the door!” he said. “I must feel the wind on my face soon or die. I think I would rather be smashed by Smaug in the open than suffocate in here!”

But the door is and remains stuck. The only way out is down. So Bilbo braves the treasury again, literally stumbles and falls through the doorway in darkness:

> There was not a gleam of light – unless, as it seemed to him, when at last he slowly raised his head, there was a pale white glint, above him and far off in the gloom. But certainly it was not a spark of dragon-fire, though the worm-stench was heavy in the place, and the taste of vapour was on his tongue.
> 
> At length Mr. Baggins could bear it no longer. “Confound you, Smaug, you worm! he squeaked aloud. “Stop playing hide-and-seek! Give me a light, and then eat me, if you can catch me!”
> 
> Faint echoes ran round the unseen hall, but there was no answer.

That glimmer, it seems to me, can be aught else but the Arkenstone, but that’s already enough said of the matter. More important; the hall of the treasure is dark and seemingly empty of dragon, but the air is still stuffy and heavy of its lingering smell.

The Company has their burglar risk some real light, and he finds the door leading further into the Mountain.

> He went on, until he came to the great doors at the further side, and there a draught of air refreshed him, but it almost puffed out his light.

The air might be easier on the lungs, but it’s still a long and desolate climb from the depths of the Mountain, with only the shifting torchlight to keep darkness at bay:

> They climbed long stairs, and turned and went down wide echoing ways, and turned again and climbed yet more stairs, and yet more stairs again. These were smooth, cut out of the living rock broad and fair; and up, up, the dwarves went, and they met no sign of any living thing, only furtive shadows that fled from the approach of their torches fluttering in the draughts.

At last they come to the great chamber of Thrór and their first sight of natural light in days:

> A white glimmer could be seen coming through some opening far above, and the air smelt sweeter. Before them light came dimly through great doors, that hung twisted on their hinges and half burnt. – – – They passed through the ruined chamber. Tables were rotting there; chairs and benches were lying there overturned, charred and decaying. Skulls and bones were upon the floor among flagons and bowls and broken drinking-horns and dust.

I can’t help thinking the chamber of Mazarbul in  _The Lord of the Rings_  as an echo of this first site of death and decay discovered in the depths of a mountain.

Then there come the springs of River Running, and a literal sprint (by gods, I make the worst puns today):

> Swiftly along this [the road beside the river channel] they ran, and round a wide-sweeping turn – and behold! before them stood the broad light of day. In front there rose a tall arch, still showing the fragments of old carven work within, worn and splintered and blackened though it was. A misty sun sent its pale light between the arms of the Mountain, and beams of gold fell on the pavement at the threshold.

From darkness so black one stumbles out of a doorway without seeing it, into golden sunlight: quite explicit as far as imagery goes. But fresh air is a cold comfort:

> A bitter easterly breeze blew with a threat of oncoming winter. It swirled over and round the arms of the Mountain into the valley, and sighed among the rocks. After their long time in the stewing depths of the dragon-haunted caverns, they shivered in the sun.

After this, I think, the march to the old look-out post is an afterthought (albeit one detailing the lay of the land beyond the Front Gate, the site of the battle, well in advance).


	13. The Fine Art of Bowmanship feat. Dragon-induced Food Shortages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ : Chapter 14: Fire and Water.

Two things I like to dig into: the fine and accurate art of dragon-slaying (or: it works out if you have a skilled archer and something to aim at) and the matter of season when facing a dragon-induced food shortage.

One reason why I’m still a bit miffed over the whole to-do with the wind-lance and  **the**  black arrow in the movie is that it doesn’t give Bard enough credit, because, hey, anyone can be a hero with The Legendary Weapon (also, the mere existence of the wind-lance has credibility issues: I mean, how likely is the place to have a fancy weapon built  _especially_  for dragons in mind, but they probably call it creative license).

In the book version, Smaug has already been peppered with arrows for some time, in vain, when the old thrush offers Bard this helpful piece of advice:

> ”Wait! Wait” It said to him. “The moon is rising. Look for the hollow of the left breast as he flies and turns above you!”

And here’s the description of the Smaug-dropping shot:

> The dragon swooped once more lower than ever, and as he turned and dived down his belly glittered white with sparkling fires of gems in the moon – but not in one place. The great bow twanged. The black arrow sped straight from the string, straight for the hollow by the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide. In it smote and vanished, barb, shaft and feather, so fierce was its flight.

So, essentially Bard aims and hits a relatively small target  **on a moving, flying dragon, by moonlight** , and the arrow flies with enough speed and power to bury it completely into the target. The latter actually sounds more impressive than it is, if we look into longbows and their capabilities (I’m assuming a longbow-type of bow, since Tolkien doesn’t go into more detail than ‘the great bow’). The reported effective ranges of start from about 200 yards, and excluding the best plate armour, the arrows could pierce steel. Now, I’m thinking the thickness of Smaug’s unprotected hide would be somewhat less than that of plate armour, but he also would have been quite a bit closer than that 200 yards when the arrow hit, since the text describes him as ‘swooping down’.

So, if the arrow vanishing into the dragon is not particularly impressive, then what is? The fact that Bard managed the shot at all. The estimates on the draw weights of mediaeval longbows vary, but even if we go with the conservative amount of around 100 lbs (instead of, say 150 or 160 lbs), the fact remains that Bard has been loosing shafts for some time before the final shot. Think of knock-and-loose times a dozen, two dozen, more. And having to pull that amount of weight  _every single time_. That kind of strength and stamina, not to mention the skill to accurately hit a target that small, on the move no less, can’t be acquired by any other means than years of dedication to the craft. Add to that some luck in bird-shape, and you get something that’s, to me at least, much more impressive than what’s essentially a crossbow on steroids.

Now, a change of direction to the situation of the Lake-town survivors once the dragon situation is handled. I quote:

> But they had really much to be thankful for [– – –] three quarters of the people of the town had at least escaped alive; their woods and fields and pastures and cattle and most of their boats remained undamaged; and the dragon was dead.

Now why is it, that some pages later it is mentioned there was little or no food, that without Thranduil’s help the people of Lake-town would have starved in the winter? They have their fields, their livestock – where is the problem? The answer lies with the season.

It’s late autumn, near winter. The harvest has been long since brought in – but where? I’m assuming majority of the storehouses to have been in the Lake-town proper, for accessibility and security. That would be gone now, all that grain and produce burned or sunken into the lake. What of the livestock, then? Could they not have slaughtered their pigs or something for food? Well, it’s the season again. In traditional farming societies, autumn is the usual time for slaughtering, because it would reduce the number of animals requiring fodder over the cold season. In this context, I assume what slaughtering there is to be done is done, and the meat would be stored in… guess where? In the storehouses on the Lake. What animals would remain would be those  **not**  intended for slaughter: cows and heifers meant to calf in spring, in fact, any animals that would be used to produce the next generation of livestock. The Lake-town people  _could_ , of course, slaughter those animals, too, but I understand why they would rather not, if there was any alternative.

And before someone says ‘what about milk and eggs’, here’s a fun fact: in pre-industrial era, hens and cows usually  _did not_  give out eggs and milk year round (due to scarcity of fodder and sunlight in wintertime). And it’s almost winter.

So, to conclude: the Men of Lake-town had plenty of reasons to be thankful for Thranduil’s help, especially Re: food supplies.


	14. What Remains After the Beast Is Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 15: The Gathering of the Clouds.

A.k.a the chapter where everything starts to go downhill. The following is my brief (-ish) venture to discuss the presence of dragons, any lingering effects thereof and the relation – possibly tangential – of those effects to what this fandom tends to dub ‘gold-sickness’.

First, I’d like to re-quote a scenery description from chapter 11:

> There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of the ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of the Dragon, and they were come at the waning of the year.

Notice that nothing bigger than grass seems to grow in the desolation; that the bushes or trees burned down by dragonflame have not regrown even after years and decades. And what of the animal life? To quote the old raven Roäc in this chapter:

> ”Behold! the birds are gathering back again to the Mountain and to Dale from South and East and West, for word has gone out that Smaug is dead!”

I would especially like to point out the word  _back_. The birds, in fact birds indigenous to the region, birds wintering in the region, as Thorin pointed out earlier, are returning. From this we can infer that they dared not or would not live near the Mountain while there was a dragon dwelling within. One exception to the rule had been crows, and those are not trustworthy birds, at least if we take Balin’s word for it:

> ”Those were crows! And nasty suspicious-looking creatures at that, and rude as well. You must have heard the ugly names they were calling after us. – – – “

The shiftiness of crows recurs later in Tolkien’s works with the  _crebain_ , or black crows of Dunland and Fangorn spying for Saruman in  _The Lord of the Rings_. The only living creatures we know to have dwelt  _within_  the Mountain are the bats that Bilbo encountered in chapter 13, and well, the general image of bats is what it is. ‘Flying rats’ is kindly said.

Which leaves the old thrush. If all other winged creatures, bar nasty sneaky crows and even shiftier bats, have deserted the mountain, how is it that this one specimen would be readily waiting the Company on the doorstep to signal them the time for opening the door? Sure, there were snails aplenty, and thrushes are fond of eating them, but I doubt they were delicacy enough to outweigh the presence of the dragon. With this in mind, I’d like to draw attention to what Thorin says about the thrush back in chapter 12:

> ”The thrushes are good and friendly – this is a very old bird indeed, and is maybe the last left of the ancient breed that used to live about here, tame to the hands of my father and grandfather. They were a long-lived and magical race, and this might even be one of those that were alive then, a couple of hundreds of years or more ago. – – –”

What if this particular thrush is old enough to remember the coming of Smaug? What if it had recognized Thorin and Company for what they were and had followed on their heels since Lake-town? To me, that would make better sense than mere coincidence. (And it also makes for a better story.)

But what to make of this in relation to the gold and the gold-sickness? If, as demonstrated by the birds, the influence of the dragon is lifted from the lands surrounding the beast’s abode as soon as the wyrm is dead, what then, of the Mountain itself? What of the treasury that served so long for Smaug’s bedchamber? What of the hoard he lay so many years upon?

> But also he [BIlbo] did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which dragon has long brooded, nor with dwarvish hearts. Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him.

It would seem that the more immediate and the more lengthy the presence of a dragon has been on a given thing or place, the stronger and more long-lasting the influence of its evil. And by consequence, if most birds would shun a region tainted with such evil, if plants larger than grass would refuse to grow in its presence, it is hardly surprising that a prolonged exposure would affect a susceptible mind. (And I would say that given his family history,  _his personal history_ , Thorin’s is definitely a susceptible mind.)

A fall is not any less regrettable even if it is seen to be inevitable.


	15. One Angle at the Arkenstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 16: A Thief in the Night.

Now, I probably won’t say anything about this chapter that has not been said before, but I’m going to give it a try. At any rate, this is going to be sketchy.

To take the long way around (I  _will_  get to the Arkenstone), I’d like to point out that Bilbo seems to be in the habit of finding valuables without looking for them – and without anyone seeing, at that. Like back in chapter 5:

> – – – suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of gold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel.

And much later in chapter 13 when he’s investigating the treasury, the onlooking dwarves see Bilbo stop for a while, but not for what reason:

> Ever as he climbed, the same white gleam had shone before him and drawn his feet towards it. [– – –] At last he looked down upon it, and he caught his breath. The great jewel shone before his feet of its own inner light – – –

But there’s one important difference: while Bilbo pockets the Ring almost without thinking, he takes the Arkenstone knowing he should not; that the jewel would not belong to the part from which he could pick his fourteenth share. And yet, in this chapter, he has the stone stand against his claim (even if with a guilty conscience).

But maybe it is something in the stone that compels. In chapter 13, Bilbo’s seizing of the jewel is described as something almost involuntary:

> Suddenly Bilbo’s arm went towards it drawn by its enchantment.

Now, ‘enchantment’ might refer to some completely mundane power of fascination, but let’s not forget that letting go of the stone, in this chapter, seems a difficult thing as well:

> Then Bilbo, not without a shudder, not without a glance of longing, handed the marvellous stone to Bard, and he held it in his hand, as though dazed.

This, of course, is a very, very faint echo of the difficulty Bilbo faces when he eventually gives up the Ring, years and decades later. But one might wonder whether Thorin’s obsessive search for the stone is caused by more than a simple longing for a family heirloom. (This angle is played up in the movies, and in my opinion not entirely without reason.)

Because the stone fascinates and draws Dwarves, Elves, Men and hobbits alike; it is the Heart of the Mountain (and consequently the heart of the King under the Mountain) – and the Heart of Trouble.


	16. Two Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 17: The Clouds Burst.

This is another iconic chapter, where many things move fast and hasten towards the bitter end. I just have a few points to make about the two kings: the one of the Woodland Realm, and the one under the Mountain.

Thranduil has only one line in this chapter, namely this:

> “Long will I tarry, ere I begin this war for gold. The dwarves cannot pass us, unless we will, or do anything that we cannot mark. Let us hope still for something that will bring reconciliation. Our advantage in numbers will be enough, if in the end it must come to unhappy blows.”

Even if Thranduil ends with a less than conciliatory note, it is still Bard who would have hurried his people into a fight for the sake of gold (and it might be worth noting that it’s Bard alone who treats with Thorin over the Arkenstone). Compare this to Thorin, who considers doing the very thing the Elvenking hesitates to do:

> And already, so strong was the bewilderment of the treasure upon him, he was pondering whether by the help of Dain he might not recapture the Arkenstone and withhold the share of the reward.

Note that earlier in chapter 15 Thorin promised Bard he would pay fairly for the supplies and aid he had received from Lake-town (albeit at his own schedule). But now we see that he has qualms over ransoming back the heirloom of his house. (It is understandable he would take offense at the said heirloom essentially being held hostage, but one would think the jewel of his fathers would be of more value to Thorin than nameless gold and silver.)

In Gandalf’s words, he’s not making a very splendid figure as the King under the Mountain. Until the moment he does.

> Rocks were hurled down from on high by the goblins above; but they [Thorin and the Company] held on, leapt down to the falls’ foot, and rushed forward to battle. Wolf and rider fell or fled before them. Thorin wielded his axe with mighty strokes, and nothing seemed to harm him.
> 
> ”To me! To me! Elves and Men! To me! O my kinsfolk!” he cried, and his voice shook like a horn in the valley.
> 
> Down, heedless of order, rushed all the dwarves of Dain to his help. Down too came many of the Lake-men, for Bard could not restrain them; and out upon the other side came many of the spearmen of the elves. Once again the goblins were stricken in the valley; and they were piled in heaps till Dale was dark and hideous of their corpses.

See what happens here? Thorin calls to his banner not only his own kinsfolk, but Men and Elves as well.  _And they come._  Men (seemingly against the will of their leader) and Elves and Dwarves rally to him and follow his lead… to find hope for a fleeting moment. That’s what I would call authority. That’s what I would call charisma.

_There is one I could call King._

Because that scene reads, for me at least, as Thorin come back to himself. And the fact that it’s only to make a last stand does not tarnish the glory of it.


	17. Notes on an Infamous Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 18: The Return Journey.

Better late than never, no?

I’ve just finished the Finnish translation of  _Beowulf_ , and the reading experience was essentially a game of ‘spot the motif Tolkien has used’. So I’ll be discussing some of those I spotted in this chapter. And also Beorn. (Because, let’s be honest, I’d rather not poke into the dreadful mess that is the end of all things.)

First of all, to get the sole reference to something else than  _Beowulf_  proper out of the way. Remember the [long post](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417509/chapters/44330512) I made about Beorn? The skinchanger makes another appearance in this chapter, and it is quite an impressive one.

> He came alone, and in bear’s shape; and he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath.
> 
> The roar of his voice was like drums and guns; and he tossed wolves and goblins from his path like straws and feathers. He fell upon their rear, and broke like a clap of thunder through the ring [of attackers surrounding Thorin and his followers]. [- - -] Then Beorn stooped and lifted Thorin, who had fallen pierced with spears, and bore him out of the fray.
> 
> Swiftly he returned and his wrath was redoubled, so that nothing could withstand him, and no weapon seemed to bite upon him.

Now, compare the passage above to this:

> Then Hjorvard and his men see a huge bear going before the King Hrolf’s men, always nearest to where the king was. He kills more men with his paw than any five of the king’s other champions. Blows and missiles glance off him. But he bursts under him both men and horses of King Hjorvard’s army; and everything that comes in his way, he crushes in his teeth, so that panic sweeps King Hjorvard’s army.
> 
> _The Saga of Hrolf Kraki and His Champions_ , translated by Peter Tunstall.

The the bear in the latter passage is the doppelgänger, or spirit-form of Bödvar Bjarki (Old Norse: Böðvar Bjarki), the chief among King Hrolf’s twelve champions. Beorn coming to Thorin’s rescue (albeit too late) would easily cast him in the role of a champion to the king. Also, need I remind you that the Company sans Thorin numbers twelve?

_The Saga of Hrolf Kraki and His Champions_  includes some of the same characters as  _Beowulf_ , but it is nonetheless a different work; so the first properly Beowulfian detail in this chapter are Fíli and Kíli (or rather their fate). In the setting of the poem (and apparently also in literary convention of the day, call it a trope if you will), sister-sons are the ones who remain loyal to the king, while the sons of his brother are portrayed as potential usurpers: Beowulf faithfully serves his mother’s brother Hygelac, the king of the Geats, and after his death refuses when offered the crown in favour of the king’s young son. In contrast, when the old king of the Danes, Hrothgar, dies, his  _brother’s_  son Hrothulf ousts the sons of the king and usurps the throne. (All of this ties to the fact that sister-sons would not inherit. )

And so, loyal unto death remain the sister-sons of Thorin Oakenshield, as is right and proper.

After the battle, it is said late in the chapter that Bard ‘rewarded his followers and friends freely’ from his portion of the treasure. Now, in Beowulfian society, generosity in valuable gifts is expected of a king, which here serves to underline Bard’s de facto position as the future ruler of Dale. (Also, Thorin’s gift of the mithril shirt to Bilbo could be also read in this light, since  _Beowulf_  has several mentions of quality armour being gifted from the king to a retainer who has proven worthy. And if sneaking into a dragon’s lair twice and living to tell the tale is not ‘worthy’ I don’t know what is.)

And so it happens that I managed to handle this chapter  _and_  circumnavigate the deathbed scene…

* * *

Sources: 

  * The Finnish translation of  _Beowulf_ , including the preface and endnotes.
  * The translation for  _The Saga of Hrolf Kraki and His Champions_  can be found [here](http://www.northvegr.org/sagas%20annd%20epics/legendary%20heroic%20and%20imaginative%20sagas/old%20heithinn%20tales%20from%20the%20north/047.html). [ETA: **dead link** , sorry!] The link directs to the portion with the above-quoted passage.




	18. An End with Another Beginning Written Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Hobbit_ , Chapter 19: The Last Stage.

This is the coda, the soft graceful wrapping-up of the story. And at the first, the light tone seems appropriate, for the chapter is set in the Last Homely House and The Shire.

But wait. It could be different. But that’s some 60 years in the future, and a whole another story.

What is interesting are the little glimpses that unintentionally to the author ( _The Lord of the Rings_  wasn’t even an idea yet) become foreshadowing.

> ”Ere long now,” Gandalf was saying, “the Forest will grow somewhat more wholesome. The North will be freed from that horror for many long years, I hope. Yet I wish he [the Necromancer, i.e. Sauron] were banished from the world!”
> 
> ”It would be well indeed,” said Elrond; “but I fear that will not come about in this age of the world, or for many after.”

As far as I can recall, this is only the second mention of Sauron in the entirety of  _The Hobbit_ , the first one being an off-hand comment from Gandalf back in chapter 7. However, his appearance in this chapter becomes significant in connection to the reference made to Bilbo’s ring:

> His magic ring he kept a great secret, for he chiefly used it when unpleasant callers came.

So he kept the ring, kept it secret, and made careless use of it. That this is treated as nothing remarkable is easy to understand when one remembers that at the time of writing, Bilbo’s ring was a generic ring of invisibility, a fairytale device, if you will. It was not yet an artefact of dark purpose. It was no One Ring.

And yet, I can’t help reading this as a partial truth only:

> – – – he remained very happy to the end of his days, and those were extraordinarily long.

Because I remember the aged hobbit grown weary of the ring of power in  _The Lord of the Rings_  and wish the Bilbo in this chapter every joy in his comfortably wealthy, indulgently disreputable existence, his golden waistcoat buttons, his merrily whistling tea kettle, his armchair and garden. For the world would indeed be a merrier place if more of us valued such things above hoarded gold and gemstones.

But I think Gandalf speaks true when he says Bilbo is not the hobbit he was.

> _Eyes that fire and sword have seen_  
>  And horror in the halls of stone  
>  Look at last on meadows green  
>  And trees and hills they long have known

For in spite of all the pretty trimmings, in spite of all the carefully tied loose ends (that’s basically what Balin’s visit is, after all), what stays with me is the feeling that you can never go home again; for neither the home or the one returning are the same.

And here, one journey’s end is another’s beginning.


End file.
